In entry or door access systems or surveillance systems that employ television monitoring, typically a television camera is mounted on an outer wall at or near an entrance of a building or residence. The field of view of the television camera is determined as a function as application. Some surveillance systems provide a wider field of view because only movement of an intruder is to be detected. However, in video entry systems for residential applications or video surveillance of ATM machines associated with ATM machines must allow identification of a person seeking entrance to the residence, or a person using the ATM, requiring a small field of view.
Typical entry or door access systems that are direct viewing systems show the occupant a "live" picture of the field of view of the camera. Such systems do not provide for saving a video image either as it is being produced or for storing to provide a history of images.
Some systems, particularly those used at ATM locations, include a video recorder. However, these devices have limited storage capacity and video tapes must be changed.
Another problem associated with known video monitoring systems is insufficient illumination and blind spots due to a back-lit condition where the image cannot be recognized.
Moreover, such video monitoring systems are generally inflexible. For example, systems that are currently operate on only one type of video broadcast system standard, such as NSTC or PAL.